A Fox News panel taking up the House Republicans storming of a closed-door hearing as part of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump's administration grew heated on Thursday as a Trump defender equated the inquiry to a "kangaroo court" while another tried to patiently explain the president has already admitted to committing a crime.
Speaking with hosts Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith, Fox contributor Charlie Hurt claimed the hearings are "unfair" because they not open to the public.
"If these people [Democrats] actually want to get to the truth, then do it out in the open and do it fairly," Hurt claimed. "What they are talking about doing is not an attack on Donald Trump, it’s an attack on the American voter. They are talking about trying to undo an election and if they have a case that is so great that can justify that, come out with it and let us all see it."
"Undoing an election with a secret inquisition is the Republican charge and it is looking for and more like that's what it is," David Asman, host of 'Bulls and Bears' added. " It is looking more and more like a kangaroo court where only the bad stuff leaks out. The stuff that might be exonerating of Trump and the Trump Administration is being withheld. For example, Ambassador [Bill] Taylor’s testimony is very strong stuff. 15 pages, some very strong charges here suggesting it was a direct quid pro quo, suggestions that perhaps John Bolton was worried about the same things."
"I think he may be forced to testify," he continued. "But again, what you didn’t see — you saw the testimony but what you didn’t see were any counter-charges to Ambassador Taylor; was there any cross-examination? If this is a court of law, what distinguishes a Kangaroo court is there is no cross-examination. If there is a cross-examination Republicans say it would undermine some of what Taylor is saying here but we haven’t seen it."
Turning to the whistleblower complaint that about Donald Trump's Ukraine call that led to the impeachment inquiry being opened, host Hemmer tried to undercut the whisltleblower by claiming he or she is reportedly a Democrat and possibly not credible, which led Fox News regular Jessica Tarlov to push back.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on because the whistleblower’s complaint has been corroborated a number of times," Tarlov lectured. "Bill Taylor’s testimony, the read-out of the call, the memorandum. The president of the United States of America confessed to the crime on television and Mick Mulvaney did it on television again."
"To your point, David, how we’re only hearing things leaking out for the benefit of Democrats, George Kent’s testimony by the way -- a long-time State Department employee -- said he raised concerns in 2015 about Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma and Joe Biden’s team had said we can’t deal with this right now, that he [was] dealing with the prolonged illness of his season, Beau, 'We have to move aside,'" she lectured. "That wasn’t good for Democrats. We had a whole news cycle about a State Department employee finding what Joe Biden was doing to be an issue."
Brushing that aside, Asman fired back, "One thing. I just want to say, [Democratic Rep Adam] Schiff did claim that nothing in these hearings would be classified. Therefore, why have it in a SCIF unless you are just trying to have tremendous control over all the information that is said inside that and only leak out the bad stuff?"
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